|
In a sense, none of these systems completely detaches
from all context in which they were formed: The context that
doesn't change is the fact that all of these systems form on this planet. A
hurricane may detach from the initial conditions that cause it to form, but it
does not leave the atmosphere and continue out into outer space... well the
same would be true even if consciousness is capable of continuing its
coherent organization after the loss of the "initial conditions" that cause IT
to form... In that sense, consciousness doesn't completely detach from all
context either, just some of it. Would it be adaptive enough a system to find
alternate sources of energy to keep its coherence?
There are a couple of aspects to consciousness (as a complex
system) that, taken together, make it radically different from a
storm system-- or indeed ANY other system we know about on Earth. Consciousness
is a volitional system with a single
awareness. It would seem logical to me that if any complex system
could be adaptive, it would be this one. One of the reasons human beings
are the most successful organism on the planet is that we have consciousness; we
use volition and creativity and imagination and abstract thought ability to
solve myriad problems that we would be physically unable to adapt to, otherwise.
It seems to me that there is plenty of room here, on purely logical and
scientific grounds, to keep the mind open. But ultimately, either it already is
true or it already is not true. What is left for us is discovery, one way or the
other.
Judith
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, December 01, 2003 6:52
PM
Subject: Re: [ROSEN] Death and
experience
A hurricane
might maintain its "cohesion" when in a different environmental
context, but the organization that is a hurricane does not
maintain its cohesion apart from its "material substrate" (air
molecules, etc.); that is the context-dependence to which I was
referring.
Regards,
Tim
Of course not! The fact that we have no proof one way would
hardly suggest that the other way is correct. That doesn't logically follow.
However, what it does do is leave open the possibility: Because there is no
proof that consciousness cannot persist beyond the context by which it was
formed, it remains possible that it does persist, in some form or
other, as a cohesive system. That is the only point I was making. I
don't necessarily believe that it does, frankly. But I see the
possibility.
One example of a complex system maintaining its cohesion even
after detached from the context in which it formed would be a hurricane. In
fact, a lot of weather systems would fit that
description.
Judith
Certainly we
have no proof that consciousness does not have that unique ability to
persist when separated from the context of its material substrate. But
that, in itself, does not logically lend any credence to the notion that
it does have that ability.
There is
nothing in what we do know about the qualities of
consciousness that provide any kind of evidence, or even suggestion,
that consciousness can persist as mentioned above. What precendents
are you referring to? To my knowledge, any complex systems which persist
in different environments do so by continuing their organization
within their original material substrate (basis); the organization of
the system does not persist apart from that.
To me, there
is also the basic question of whether "consciousness" is, in fact,
anything more than the behaviors associated with some system
type(s). If so, then it would not make sense for behaviors to
persist apart from the underlying causal system which generates
them.
I leave it
as an open possibility that consciousness might be able to persist beyond
bodily embodiment. I simply see no evidence to support or even
suggest it is the case.
Regards,
Tim
Yes, but Tim, do we have proof that "the particular complex
system we call consciousness" DOESN'T have a unique ability "to persist
when separated from the context of its material substrate", as you put
it? In many ways, it behaves differently than other matter-based complex
systems do, so far as we are able to tell. There's a lot of room in
there for scientifically rigorous discovery that has nothing to do with
mysticism.
If you proceed from what we do know about human
consciousness: that it is unique in reality as far as we can discern,
then why is it such a leap to consider the possibility that it can
retain its cohesion or achieve some sort of metamorphosis that
allows it to maintain its cohesion once detached from the matter
that gave rise to it? There are precedents for complex systems that
maintain cohesion after disconnecting from the
context which created the systems in the first place.
Judith
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, November 30, 2003
6:03 PM
Subject: Re: [ROSEN] Death and
experience
My
question is: out of all the myriad complex systems in
nature, on what basis should we suspect that the particular
complex system we call "consciousness" has any unique ability to
persist when separated from the context of its material
substrate?
As much
as I would dearly wish it to be so, I see no reason besides such
wishes that we have to suppose that consciousness occupies this
unique status.
Perhaps,
though, this is where we make the transition from scientific knowledge
to another form of knowledge: mysticism, which RR
discussed in the manuscript "The Limits of the Limits of
Science".
Regards,
Tim
I just noticed that I neglected to include the note at
the end of the last post, on death and
consciousness...
What I had intended to discuss was related to the fact
that one of my father's favorite things to do was point out what
"nobody knows" in many our various discussions. All my life, he did
that; talking in great depth about what some of the beliefs are and
the controversies, but pointing out not only what isn't known but
how it effects other things we THINK we know. There is often a
domino effect similar to what he discovered when he retraced the
steps leading to the current reductionist approach in mainstream
science, only to discover that some of those steps were poorly
thought out.
Many of our discussions involved human
physiology. My father talked about the fact that human
bodies are able to perceive the proximity of
other human bodies in ways not related to our conscious perceptions.
He cited as one proof of this the well-documented fact that adult
women living together will entrain their menstrual cycles. "Nobody
knows how that happens," he said. He further said he had never heard
of anyone trying to study the phenomenon, not even in
Obstetrics or Gynecology. I asked why, and he said he presumed that
nobody thought it important enough to study. However, he pointed
out that the mechanism at work behind it could be very
important, indeed. How does one human body "read" another? How does
it detect something as subtle as an internal model (an
anticipatory model, incidentally) that controls timing of
a menstrual cycle-- or perhaps even just the timing of the menstrual
cycle itself? Even more fantastic, how and why does one body
make changes in its own cycle to begin to achieve simultaneity?! How
many steps are there to achiving a synchronous cycle? (I
can attest to the fact that it really does happen, from personal
experience throughout my life.) Another aspect to the phenomenon is
that one woman's cycle seems to be "chosen" as the dominant one, and
her's doesn't deviate. Instead, all the others will alter to match
hers. So, how is this subtle but crucial complex information being
communicated, back and forth???? It is not connected to volition. It
is a completely independent mechanism from the conscious
mind! If medical science can answer these questions, it will be
a breakthrough on all kinds of other things that have so far eluded
researchers.
The reason I think this pertains to the question about
consciousness and whether the organization of that particular
complex system can persist after the death of a human being's body
is because the above example is a glimpse at the kinds
of things that we don't know about something so familiar as our
own bodies and minds. I can certainly be accused of watching too
much Star Trek in my life, but the fact that the example mentioned
is not even being studied raises huge credibility issues for me with
regards to how medical science approaches learning about human
physiology. It doesn't sound all that farfetched that there may be
life forms that live off ambient energy the way plants use sunlight
to make sugar. If consciousness is a stable complex system that only
requires energy to maintain its cohesion, then the metamorphosis
from using visceral sources to ambient sources isn't out of the
realm of possibility to me.
If it IS possible, then what sort of existence would
that be like? My only certainty on that subject is that it would be
very different from what life, as we experience it, is like. So much
of our knowledge of the universe is bounded by what our human
perceptions are capable of perceiving-- and how our senses perceive
it.
Judith
|